el is here!

alex maclean

He's an aerial photographer based out of Lincoln, MA, and I highly recommend you check out his work.

Tadej Znidarcic

“The bill will decide the future of gay people in Uganda. If the bill comes, we [the activists] will be the first ones to be arrested. They know us.”

“I used to be religious, but now I’m not anymore. I lost my religion because of all the hatred preached by the Christians here. I rather go to my room and pray for myself to God. I know that God is there.”

“I was arrested. The boda [motorcycle] guy asked me whether I was married. I said no, I love men, I don't love women. He was interested, we exchanged numbers. We met the day after and he took me on the boda. Then he said the fuel was finished, so I got off and there were policemen waiting. One slapped me. The one who was from my tribe said I was shaming them. He said he would call the media and put my picture in the newspaper. I got very scared. They took me to the police station. I had to write a statement that I wanted to sodomise the guy. I refused. They were humiliating and pushing me with the gun. They told me the guy wanted 1.5 million shillings. I had 15,000 in my wallet. They took it. I said I could raise only 300,000. It was money that I got to pay my brother's school fees. I hired a special [taxi] and went to my place with two policemen. The driver and one policeman stood outside. I entered inside with a policeman and gave him the money. I was released at 3am.”

hipster trap

Includes PBR, bike chain, American spirits, Wayfarers, and fake blood. Art happening?

inside out project

JR's work is an example of how art can be activism. He describes himself in the street, pasting away, when someone walks up and asks, "What are you doing?" "Art," he says. Silence.

His works are beautiful, compelling, and specifically linked to local culture. When he leaves, the only way to find out about the project is by talking to the residents who were involved. He used the project featured above, to create a bridge between the people of Provencia and the media who had silenced them.

His newest project aims to involve everyone in the movement of using art to change the world, by offering an interested party to submit a portrait and an idea. If they are selected, he will send back a poster size version of the portrait for pasting in the proposed location.

save the world? what about art...

"JR, a semi-anonymous French street artist, uses his camera to show the world its true face, by pasting photos of the human face across massive canvases. At TED2011, he makes his audacious TED Prize wish: to use art to turn the world inside out. Learn more about his work and learn how you can join in at insideoutproject.net."

-TED

we have failed each other miserably

Christine Young

The Grand Egyptian Museum

VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT

JOB TITLE: Director, Conservation Center

LOCATION: The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), Collections & Conservation Department, Cairo, Arab Republic of Egypt

DESCRIPTION of DUTIES and RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Director, Conservation Center would be responsible for the planning and management of all activities at the Conservation Center. The Director of the Conservation Center would oversee all aspects of the conservation, care and related research primarily for the collections of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) as well as provide leadership for collections care throughout the country. This would include close collaboration and planning with the Director, Museum Collections with regards to management and development of the GEM collections but with specific focus on preservation.


At first I thought this was a joke, but then I realized its not.

how to smile

I told you to smile when you are feeling down.
However, there are steps you should know.

First you go to the mirror and smile to the mirror in anyway you can.
You probably will not feel any different.
Smile a few times that way.

If that is not enough, smile a few times every morning when you see the mirror.
That won't do much, either, right?
Because there is a way to smile and change not only your mood, but make your body healthy and young, and change your life for the better!

1) Smile just by twisting the ends of your mouth up.
That doesn't get you anywhere, I bet.
But that's a start.

2) Smile with your eyes and mouth.
That's better.
Your smile will make somebody feel good, maybe.

Add a little giggle, and they will either think you're crazy or like you for it.

3) If you really want to smile so it will make yourself feel good as well -
you have to smile from your heart and your lungs.

Don't worry, if you are ending the smile with a quiet sound like ummm.

4) The next step will make you feel still better.
Smile from your solar plexus.
This has an added benefit of making your solar plexus healthier, and active.

5) The next step is to smile right down from your stomach.
When you do this, make sure to breathe deeply and pull your stomach muscles in as you smile.

6) The next step - yes, there are more steps! - you should smile from your knees.
Again, ju st pull your knees in - as you pull your stomach in.
At the same time you use your lungs, heart and solar plexus.

You'll see that by then, you are smililng with your whole body.
You won't forget to smile with your eyes and mouth at the same time.
It will happen anyway.

That's how you will get the true benefit of smiling.
How about giving a smile to others?
Should we forget that?

Don't worry.
They'll notice your smile.
Only, this time, you'll feel good, too.
Very, very good!

I love you! yoko

Yoko Ono
24 July 2009
via smiling face film

I hate the man

but very occasionally there's a but...

Bank of America is offering free admission to 150 museums nationwide on the first weekend of every month to anyone with a Bank of America card.

In Massachusetts the offer includes the MFA, the deCordova, and the Worcester Art Museum. Also on the list is the Phillips Collection in DC and the Met in NY.

Pollock 1944 Equine Series II, Worcester Art Museum

back to the future

A project by photographer Irina Werning. I think these are really funny and interesting, and clearly very well done. But are they art? What is Werning's goal? and how well is she achieving it?

plaid

Associated with nature and the outdoors, plaid is often presented in opposition to society and technological progress. Today, it is hawked as a centerpiece in the heritage fashion trend. Popular since 2007, heritage fashion champions long-standing American brands like Pendleton, Woolwich, and L.L. Bean. It equates such labels with quality and simplicity, taking us back to a time when clothes were American-made, the Western frontier beckoned, and life was simpler. As modern society becomes faster paced and increasingly virtual, plaid shirts and heritage fashion become gateways to a less globalized, less digital world.

But heritage fashion’s promise is hollow. As tech workers wearing plaid and carrying canvas rucksacks walk purposefully down city streets, far away from the open frontier, their fashion ceases to evoke a rustic lifestyle; instead it expresses a disconnection from and longing for that lifestyle. All we see is their striving, and the clothes take on the opposite of their intended meaning.

Plaid is often a pattern of contradiction, particularly when it used to assert one’s identity as an outsider. Alienated teenagers of the ’90s wore plaid flannel to communicate their isolation; in the process, they joined together, and their alienation was relieved. Today, DIY hipsters don thrift-store plaid in a statement of iconoclasm, in the process creating a culture of sartorial conformity. In both cases, one effect cancels out the other.

-Read the whole article by Jeremy Sanders at Art:21